TWITTER CEO: 'Managing By Trying To Be Liked Is The Path To Ruin'

The difference between empathy and sympathy is one that's lost on
many people. Empathy is just recognizing someone else's emotions.
Sympathy is usually a reaction.

When it comes to management, that's a critical difference.
Empathy is fine. Sympathy,
according to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, can be a problem,
because it often means you're just trying to be liked. It's fine
to disagree with senior people. It's also fine to be persuaded by
them. It's not fine to make up excuses.

"There's no better way to undermine your own leadership,"
Costolo said in a November conversation with Ben
Horowitz hosted
by Fast Company. Here's how he summed up the distinction:

"Yeah. I'll tell my managers, 'Look, managing by trying to be
liked is the path to ruin.' And they'll say, 'Well, does that
mean I should just tell someone, 'You can't work on project A,
you idiot, how many times have I told you this?'' And I say, 'No,
you can be empathetic — you just can't be
sympathetic.'

You can say, 'I understand you want to work on project A. It's
just not a priority right now.' You can't say, 'I know you want
to work on project A, Dick just really doesn't want to make it a
priority.' Don't sympathize with them, right? You can empathize;
don't sympathize."

If you have good people and you trust them, then you don't need
to react to try and make them feel better when you disagree. You
can hold your ground when you need to, and give when you're not
sure.

If you are somewhere in the middle, then have a discussion.
That's the benefit of hiring people that are better at some
things than you are. Otherwise, you're just looking for people to
say yes to you and do things the way you want them to.